Volume 1, No. 19. October 19, 2001
[Photo of Elvira lounging in the hotel suite decorated in her honor at Knott's Scary Farm. Photo courtesy of Knott's Berry Farm]
Suite nightmares
What many professional haunters consider
the best Halloween practitioner in the industry, Knott's Berry Farm in Buena
Park, California, is making its 29th Halloween Haunt a destination in its own
right. This year the park is going way upscale with a hotel package—or,
in keeping with the theme, way downscale.
The hotel suite, you see, is arguably the tackiest you will find anywhere. At
$999 per night, it also will cost you dear. But it comes with Elvira, so to
speak, and therein lies its appeal.
With the addition two years ago of the adjacent Radisson Resort hotel, Knott's
Berry Farm has been able to do cross-promotions, not only for the whole year
(with 16 themed Snoopy rooms) but for its October-long transformation into Knott's
Scary Farm. Last year the park offered a couple of October packages: Bare Bones
that included an overnight stay and tickets to Knott's Scary Farm ($159 for
two people) and Haunted Dreams ($219) added a T-shirt and dinner.
The initial success of those packages prompted Knott's officials to expand the
program, and they latched on to the idea of developing a partnership with that
other horror icon, Elvira, who has performed intermittently at Knott's Scary
Farm for 14 years. Said Susan Tierney, Knott's director of public relations:
"We drew a rendition of the room and gave it to her to look at, and she thought
it was great."
She would. "Elvira's Chamber" is all red and black velvet bedspreads and curtains,
with ornate pillows on the bed and a headstand that looks like it outlasted
a Victorian funeral home. The room is further appointed with candelabra, funereal
flowers and a couple of skulls. Any couple renting the "Mistress of the Park's"
suite (the hotel has only one) also gets tickets to the park, dinner, a gift
basket of Halloween goodies, VIM passes (Very Important Monsters) that allow
them to go to the front of the hour-long queues at the 10 mazes, and a meeting
with Elvira herself, whose show celebrating the character's 20th anniversary
("Elvira At 20: Almost Legal") is one of Knott's Scary Farm's six new shows
this year.
Could all that really be worth $999? Well, that VIM alone would appeal to a
lot of Knott's Scary Farm fans. The only other way the general public can get
the reduced-waiting privilege is to indulge in another hotel package Knott's
is offering this year, the Gruesome Getaway which includes everything guests
would get with the Haunted Dreams package plus the VIM. That one costs $499.
You do the math on how much meeting Elvira is worth.
"There are a lot of Elvira fans out there, and a lot of Elvira fans are Halloween
Haunt fans," Tierney said. The package was first unveiled to the public on July
13—note, that was a Friday the 13th—when Elvira herself checked into
her own suite. Within a week the park sold four nights, and as the Haunt began
the first of this month, more than half the available nights had been booked,
Tierney said. "I can say we certainly are pleasantly surprised with how well
it was received."